Help with looking at my first time party?

[Accipiter]

Ok, so I'm quickly getting overwhelmed by choices and want to get into play. After reading as much as I could here,  here's what I think I'm going with for a main party, recognizing I'll be switching folks in and out as needed. This will be my first and only run through (don't usually replay games). I'll be playing on Veteran. 

1) MC - Herald (Troubadour/Kind wayfarer) - off tank, summons, and help with heals/

2) Eder- Swashbuckler - main tank oriented

3) Maia - Scout, DPS

4)Tekehu - SC Druid - AOE and help with heals

5) Aloth - SC Wizard, AOE/control

Interested if anything (priest?) is lacking, or if this will work ok? Don't need it to be absolutely optimized, just soemthing that doesn;t have nay obvious holes or lacks some easy synergies. 

[Boeroer]

Hi,

the composition is fine. Herald is a very good pick for the main character. It's neither difficult to build nor to play yet it is very impactful. Note that calling summons is generally one of the most effective moves in the game. However, it comes with the price of more (micro-) management. If one has no problem with that it's a great thing to do. 

A Priest would help with party support, most notably accuracy - and as a counter against most afflictions, too. No matter the severity of an affliction: an inspiration to the same attribute (no matter the tier) will remove that affliction. An Priests have plenty of spells with (AoE) inspirations. But a Herald can also take care of this. At later levels a Priest also gets good AoE damage, summons and CC. But it's not mandatory, especially not on sub-PotD difficulties. Also because you have good healing capabilities and support in the party already. 

Both SC Wizard and Druid get very powerful spells at their highest levels (and also progress to some impactful mid-tier spells faster than a multiclass would) so single class is a good pick for a first playthrough imo. 

Maia as a Scout is very effective against single, dangerous foes (like casters or rogues or so), especially with an arquebus (watch out for "the Red Hand" - perfect weapon for her). But she will need a backup weapon that does non-pierce damage (bows or implements or a unique pistol that deals raw damage or such) because there are quite a number of enemies who are resistant or even immune to pierce damage (mostly skeletal enemies and fire "elementals" and such). Meeting those without any backup weapon can be a very frustrating experience: in one encounter you snipe everything into bits and in the next you can't do anything. 

In general it's best to keep a backup weapon in the second weapon slot that does alternative damage (like... if you have a main sword that does pierce or slash damage you might want a backup mace with crush damage) and pick the damage setup that is beat against the enemies armor type. It's good practice: unterpenetration is one of the most severe disadvantages and most frustrating things you might experience in a fight.

Since Tekehu might be casting most of the time I'd recommend to use a quarterstaff + the proficiency (+20 to [edit] melee [/edit] deflection for less damage with the staff). The bonus deflection is very nice to have because Druids have no ability besides Moonwell to boost their deflection much. Higher quarterstaff deflection deters a lot of (ranged) [edit] melee [/edit] enemies to target that squishy caster specifically. This can be so annoying because the encounter starts and before your caster can do anything he can get taken down. This can be a real nuisance in boarding fights for example. Higher deflection without any fuzz does help here ([edit] even if it's melee-only[/edit]).

The modal doesn't stack with active deflection-only buffs (from spells and chants and so on) - but since you won't bring a Priest who would be dishing out those buffs mostly this shouldn't be a problem. There's a nice early unique quarterstaff (the Spine of Thicket Green) in the game that fits nicely with Druids in general and is also useful in some scripted scenes. And if the spells lots are empty you can turn the modal off and attack from the second ranks because of the reach. Taste of the Hunt is a surprisingly good melee "spell" btw. 

Aloth as a wizard has plenty of defensive self buffs so imo you are more free in the choice of equipment. Check out his phantom spells: phantoms get copies of your equipment. You cannot steer them (they are run by AI) so you cannot use items with abilities you have to trigger yourself, but everything that activates on its own will work with them. This can be fun to play with certain item combinations. Also phantoms will keep summoned weapons and those will not get replaced. So if you summon Concelhaut's Draining Touch (one of the best weapons in the game, but it's usually gone after one hit) and then calla phantom, the phantom will also have the Draining Touch but it will never go away as long as the phantom lives. That way you can have a very good damage dealing summon that can also do good off-tanking (imagine calling the phantom while having the Draining Tough + a good large shield, then switching to your proper weapon set after the phantom is there). 

Anyway, I don't expect any problems. If you encounter some you can of course ask around here. Somebody will react, even if the forum isn't as crowded anymore.

 

 

Edited May 20 by Boeroer
messed up: quarterstaff modal gives +20 deflection against melee attacks only

[Chaospread]

On 5/18/2024 at 9:16 AM, Boeroer said:

Since Tekehu might be casting most of the time I'd recommend to use a quarterstaff + the proficiency (+20 to deflection for less damage with the staff). The bonus deflection is very nice to have because Druids have no ability besides Moonwell to boost their deflection much. Higher deflection deters a lot of (ranged) enemies to target that squishy caster specifically. This can be so annoying because the encounter starts and before your caster can do anything he can get shot down by multiple rogues/rangers. This can be a real nuisance in boarding fights. Higher deflection without any fuzz does help here. 

Doesn't quarterstaff modal bonus deflection apply only versus melee attacks? For defensive casters I'd prefer shield (small) and hatchet (+3 deflection agains all) or shield and dagger, shield as good deflection bonus against all, and in case of melee fight, you get another +10 bonus.

About party composition: I think it would also good with another dps martial pg (mirke or rekke) in place of tehenu or aloth, if you drop tehenu healing can be give from scrolls by a ranged/caster pg.

[Boeroer]

11 hours ago, Chaospread said:

Doesn't quarterstaff modal bonus deflection apply only versus melee attacks?

You are right. Brain fart on my part. So the deterrence only works for melee opponents. 

11 hours ago, Chaospread said:

For defensive casters I'd prefer shield (small) and hatchet (+3 deflection agains all) or shield and dagger, shield as good deflection bonus against all, and in case of melee fight, you get another +10 bonus.

Yes, that's also my preferred approach. It's just that the Spine of Thicket Green is a nice "stat stick" for a Druid and the downside of the modal (+50% recovery with quarterstaff attacks) doesn't hurt the spellcasting at all - while +20 is a pretty substancial defensive buff (even if only vs. melee attacks ). 

11 hours ago, Chaospread said:

About party composition: I think it would also good with another dps martial pg (mirke or rekke) in place of tehenu or aloth, if you drop tehenu healing can be give from scrolls by a ranged/caster pg.

I do not agree this time. Thekehu (bc. of his subclass) is one of the best companions - at least for me - because first of all Druids are so versatile and have enormous impact at higher levels and secondly the Watershaper's bonus spells are all foe-only and thus very convenient to use, especially for a beginner.
The foe-only Chillfog alone is a reason for me to bring him along... I love to use it in combination with Aloth's Combusting Wounds (which - surprisingly - works even though they are opposing elements). I also like that he has Watery Double (which is basically a Substancial Phantom with different spells) which frequently summons an additional Ondra's Whip or some of the foe-only Watershaper spells. 

Aloth can replace a martial companion after some few levels. Self buffs can make him sturdy and an Essential Phantom (+ Draining Touch for example) brings an additional martial ally if you need more bodies.   

However: in the early game somebody like Mirke would make things a little easier because the casters will only have a few spell slots and will burn through them rather quickly. On the other hand the fights on Veteran don't last as long as on PotD...  

Edited May 19 by Boeroer

[Accipiter]

Thanks for the extensive advice!

[Chaospread]

10 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Yes, that's also my preferred approach. It's just that the Spine of Thicket Green is a nice "stat stick" for a Druid and the downside of the modal (+50% recovery with quarterstaff attacks) doesn't hurt the spellcasting at all - while +20 is a pretty substancial defensive buff (even if only vs. melee attacks ). 

Yes, Spine of Thicket Green seems just a staff made for Druids
For party composition, I didn't explain well: with Aloth and above all Tehenu the party works very good and it is strong, maybe sometimes you can switch some characters for a monk or a barbarian, I think these classes are more fun sometimes compared to casters

[Boeroer]

Ah, good point!

You know I really like to play monks because they are a lot of fun. 

What I like about Mike is that her Rogue subclass is Streetfighter. This makes for an awesome Monk/Streetfighter blunderbuss/mortar build.